Analyzing the Role of Community and Individual Factors in LAMP Grant Funding: Identifying Diverse Barriers Across Clustered US Counties
FAS Food Systems Impact Fellowship Capstone Project, April 2024
Introduction
Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP)
The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) administers a variety of grant programs aimed at strengthening local and regional food systems. The Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) is one such program that supports direct producer-to-consumer marketing, food enterprises, and value-added agricultural products. Established under the 2018 Farm Bill, LAMP fosters community collaboration and public-private partnerships to improve regional food economies, aiding in the development of business strategies and infrastructure for local food systems.
Building community capital through food systems investment
Theory of Change
According to AMS, the main goals of the LAMP program include the following1:
Simplify the application processes and the reporting processes for the Program
Improve income and economic opportunities for producers and food businesses through job creation
Strengthen capacity and regional food system development through community collaboration and expansion of mid-tier value chains
Targeting / prioritizing funding
In 2021, AMS partnered with Florida A&M University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore on a project focusing on the following goals2:
Evaluate barriers to AMS grant opportunities for socially disadvantaged communities
Invest in building trust and confidence between these communities and the USDA
Take action to rectify inequalities in program access through targeted outreach, training, and technical assistance.
(something here about the history of discrimination in USDA programs, sowing mistrust among these communities, and potential hesitancy to partner with USDA on programs like LAMP.
Goal of this project
Analyze the data to see if there are relationships between community characteristics and likelihood of receiving LAMP funding
Generate actionable insights into improving LAMP grant targeting, identify
Caveats and such
Temporal component -
Does not include data on who applied, in addition to who was funded.
Best practices, current innovation, and policy proposals
(Identify and discuss successful program and policy models, emerging and innovative approaches, or other proposed interventions relevant to the issue area.)
Objectives of this research
Methods
(TBD)
Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP)
The LAMP program’s main goals3 are:
Connect and cultivate regional food economies through public-private partnerships.
Support the development of business plans, feasibility studies, and strategies for value-added agricultural production and local and regional food system infrastructure.
Strengthen capacity and regional food system development through community collaboration and expansion of mid-tier value chains.
Improve income and economic opportunities for producers and food businesses through job creation; and
Simplify the application processes and the reporting processes for the Program.
The major grant programs within LAMP include the Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP), Regional Food Systems Partnership (RFSP), and the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP).
Distribution of LAMP Grant funding across CONUS
Community characteristics
Participation in grant programs supporting investment in local food systems, such as LAMP, is influenced by a variety of socioeconomic and environmental factors that influence local needs, as well as local capacity to apply for grants and manage funded projects. Community wealth, which encompasses social capital, natural capital, financial capital, and a variety of other forms of wealth impacts the ability to engage and participate in such programs.4 Moreover, things like poverty and food insecurity rates have been shown to exacerbate vulnerabilities and influence accessibility and participation in programs.5 With food systems-focused programs such as LAMP, urbanization and proximity to agricultural land can influence market dynamics and food system connectivity.6
This report will assess the relationship of each of these community characteristics to the distribution of LAMP grants across the US.
Exploration of available data
As a first step, a variety of data sets were obtained, cleaned, and used for some general data exploration.